Stephen King has some harsh words for two of the biggest young adult franchises in recent history, slamming both the Twilight Saga and The Hunger Games series in a new interview.
Speaking to The Guardian to promote his new novel Doctor Sleep, a sequel to his hit The Shining, the acclaimed author is asked for his thoughts on Twilight and whether the series rivals any of his horror hits.
“I agree with Abra’s teacher friend [in Doctor Sleep] who calls Twilight and books like it tweenager porn,” King says. “They’re really not about vampires and werewolves. They’re about how the love of a girl can turn a bad boy good.”
The novelist goes on, “I read Twilight and didn’t feel any urge to go on with her. I read The Hunger Games and didn’t feel an urge to go on.”
The series, in which kids fight to the death in an annual televised event, actually seemed very familiar to him.
“It’s not unlike [my book] The Running Man, which is about a game where people are actually killed and people are watching: a satire on reality TV,” says King.
He also notes, “I read Fifty Shades Of Grey and felt no urge to go on. They call it mommy porn, but it’s not really mommy porn. It is highly charged, sexually driven fiction for women who are, say, between 18 and 25.”

He must be secretly happy, knowing he's no longer the worst writer on the best-seller lists.

[quote]They’re really not about vampires and werewolves. They’re about how the love of a girl can turn a bad boy good.
Well, yes. That's what TWILIGHT is. A teen romance. Why is that, by definition, a bad thing?
Not to defend those godawful books, but when the geek audience slams them for not being good vampire stories, I always want to laugh. It's like slamming ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT for not being a GLENGARY GLEN ROSS-esque account of life on the real estate game.

He's right about all of it.
Although I don't know how he managed to get through even one Fifty Shades of Shit installment.

Pot, kettle, glass houses, etc. etc.

He's right. I'd love to see him to a version of "Twilight" meets "`Salems Lot

R1, compared to Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey, Stephen King is great literature.

Stephen King novels were all ghost written. And I do mean GHOST written.

What R9 said.
It's crap, and embarrassing crap.

I agree with him on Twilight. The Hunger Games aren't extremely great books, but they are better than Twilight.

I wish people wouldn't quote Stephen King. It makes me think of the words coming out of that human-jack-o-lantern-ghoul-slash mouth of his, and it frighten me.

He's wrong. Fifty Shades is mommy porn, if not granny porn.
A friend who works for Amazon told me he gets tons of complaints from old ladies that there's no large print version (or wasn't at the time).

I think the characters in 50 Shades are way too young. The writer should have made them early to mid-30's.